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Religious Studies Major

Study the religious dimension of cultures historically and globally.

As a Religious Studies major or minor, take an academic journey of acquiring awareness and understanding of religious dimensions, traditions and their significance across cultures and historical periods.

You’ll examine religion through various vantage points by taking both a broad range of interdisciplinary courses and making focused, critical inquiries into particular historic religious traditions, geographical areas, philosophical and critical approaches, and thematic and comparative studies.

Courses at any of the 5Cs are open to you and advanced students may, with permission, enroll in master’s level courses in their area of specialization at Claremont Graduate University.

In class with Professor Oona Eisenstadt

In class with Professor Erin Runions

In class with Professor Zhiru Ng

What You'll Study

Four courses in a concentration

Three courses outside your concentration

A senior seminar and senior thesis

Language study appropriate to your concentration recommended

126

You can choose from 126 interdisciplinary courses for your religious studies major or minor.

Learning at Pomona

Peter Chen '17

Religion, more so than philosophy, embodies ways that people have actually tried to live, not just ways of thinking that represent a good way to live. Furthermore, the interdisciplinary nature of the department allows me to explore religion through history, philosophy, literature, or art and attempt to understand what people think and why they think what they do.

Faculty & Teaching

Among our Religious Studies faculty members are professors awarded for their excellence in teaching. We have experts on a range of topics, including gender and sexuality studies and the Bible, corporate polytheism, modern Jewish philosophy, women and Islam, and Chinese Buddhist art.

Professor Erin Runions

Religious Studies enlarges students’ perspectives through examination of religious and secular world views, rituals, ethics and philosophies. It is an interdisciplinary field that looks as much at culture, politics and materiality as it does at religious doctrine. Our courses trouble inherited notions of self and other, even as they ask students to engage diverse traditions, practices, histories and power relations.